Steve Woznaik Biography

Synopsis

Steve Wozniak was born in San Jose, California, on August 11, 1950. In partnership with his friend Steve Jobs, Wozniak invented the Apple I computer. The pair founded Apple Computers in 1976 with Ronald Wayne, releasing some of the first personal computers on the market. Wozniak also personally developed the next model, Apple II, which established Apple as a major player in micro-computing.

Founding Apple Computer

The son of an engineer at Lockheed Martin, Stephen Gary Wozniak, born on August 11, 1950, was fascinated by electronics at an early age. Although he was never a star student in the traditional sense, Wozniak had an aptitude for building working electronics from scratch.

During his brief stint at the University of California at Berkeley, Steve Wozniak met Steve Jobs through a mutual friend. The two paired up to form Apple Computer on April 1, 1976, prompting Wozniak to quit his job at Hewlett-Packard.

Working out of a family garage, he and Jobs attempted to produce a user-friendly alternative to the computers that were being introduced by International Business Machines at that time. Wozniak worked on the invention of products and Jobs was responsible for marketing.

Not long after Apple was founded, Wozniak created the Apple I, a so-called "Homebrew" design built largely in Jobs's bedroom and garage. With Wozniak's knowledge of electronics and Jobs's marketing skills, the two were well-suited to do business together. Wozniak went on to conceive the Apple II as part of the company's personal-computer series, and by 1983, Apple had a stock value of $985 million.

Wozniak ended his employment with Apple in 1987.

Personal Life

In February of 1981, Wozniak was injured when the private plane he was piloting crashed while taking off from the Santa Cruz Sky Park. His painstaking recovery lasted two years, as he suffered from a variety of injuries and amnesia.

Not one to flaunt his personal life, Wozniak is married to Janet Hill, an Apple education development executive. The less-notorious of the original Apple duo, Wozniak has nevertheless made appearences on the reality show Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List and ABC'sDancing with the Stars (season 8).

Later Career

Following his accident and subsequent recovery, Wozniak went on to found numerous ventures, including CL 9, the company responsible for the first programmable universal remote control.

Called one of "Silicon Valley's most creative engineers," in 1990 he joined Mitchell Kapor in establishing the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization which provides legal aid for computer hackers facing criminal prosecution. Wozniak also founded Wheels of Zeus (WoZ) in 2001, a venture started with the aim of developing wireless GPS technology.

After WoZ closed in 2006, Wozniak published his autobiography,iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It. Three years later, he joined the Salt Lake City-based start-up Fusion-io as its chief scientist. 

Why Is Steve Wozniak Important?:

Steve Wozniak is the co-founder of Apple Computers. Wozniak has always been credited with being the main designer of the first Apples.

Wozniak is also a noted philanthropist who founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and was the founding sponsor of the Tech Museum, Silicon Valley Ballet and Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose.

What Impact Did Steve Wozniak Have On The History of Computers?:

Steve Wozniak was the main designer on the Apple I and Apple II computers together with Steve Jobs (business brains) and others. The Apple II is noted as the first commercially successful line of personal computers, featuring a central processing unit, a keyboard, color graphics, and a floppy disk drive. In 1984, Steve Wozniak greatly influenced the design of the Apple Macintosh computer, the first successful home computer with a mouse-driven graphical user.

Awards:

Steve Wozniak was awarded the National Medal of Technology by the President of the United States in 1985, the highest honor bestowed on America’s leading innovators. In 2000, he was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame and was awarded the prestigious Heinz Award for Technology, The Economy and Employment for “single-handedly designing the first personal computer and for then redirecting his lifelong passion for mathematics and electronics toward lighting the fires of excitement for education in grade school students and their teachers."

Steve Wozniak Quotes:

At our computer club, we talked about it being a revolution. Computers were going to belong to everyone, and give us power, and free us from the people who owned computers and all that stuff.

I thought Microsoft did a lot of things that were good and right building parts of the browser into the operating system. Then I thought it out and came up with reasons why it was a monopoly.

Creative things have to sell to get acknowledged as such.

Every dream I've ever had in life has come true ten times over.

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.

I never left [referring to leaving Apple Computers]. I keep a tiny residual salary to this day because that's where my loyalty should be forever. I want to be an "employee" on the company database. I won't engineer, I'd rather be basically retired due to my family.

Biography of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs  biography

 

QUICK FACTS

NAME: Steve Jobs

OCCUPATION: Entrepreneur, Computer

Programmer, Inventor

BIRTH DATE: February 24, 1955

DEATH DATE: October 05, 2011

EDUCATION: Reed College

AKA: Steve Jobs

SYNOPSIS

Steve Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave him up for adoption. Smart but directionless, Jobs experimented with different pursuits before starting Apple Computers with Stephen Wozniak in the Jobs's family garage. Apple's revolutionary products, which include the iPod, iPhone and iPad, are now seen as dictating the evolution of modern technology.

EARLY LIFE

Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, to Joanne Schieble (later Joanne Simpson) and Abdulfattah "John" Jandali, two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave their unnamed son up for adoption. His father, Abdulfattah Jandali, was a Syrian political science professor and his mother, Joanne Schieble, worked as a speech therapist. Shortly after Steve was placed for adoption, his biological parents married and had another child, Mona Simpson. It was not until Jobs was 27 that he was able to uncover information on his biological parents.

As an infant, Steven was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs and named Steven Paul Jobs. Clara worked as an accountant and Paul was a Coast Guard veteran and machinist. The family lived in Mountain View within California's Silicon Valley. As a boy, Jobs and his father would work on electronics in the family garage. Paul would show his son how to take apart and reconstruct electronics, a hobby which instilled confidence, tenacity and mechanical prowess in young Jobs.

While Jobs has always been an intelligent and innovative thinker, his youth was riddled with frustrations over formal schooling. In elementary school he was a prankster whose fourth grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. Jobs tested so well, however, that administrators wanted to skip him ahead to high school—a proposal his parents declined.

After he did enroll in high school, Jobs spent his free time at Hewlett-Packard. It was there that he befriended computer club guru Steve Wozniak. Wozniak was a brilliant computer engineer, and the two developed great respect for one another.

APPLE COMPUTERS

After high school, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Lacking direction, he dropped out of college after six months and spent the next 18 months dropping in on creative classes. Jobs later recounted how one course in calligraphy

In 1974, Jobs took a position as a video game designer with Atari. Several months later he left Atari to find spiritual enlightenment in India, traveling the continent and experimenting with psychedelic drugs. In 1976, when Jobs was just 21, he and Wozniak started Apple Computers. The duo started in the Jobs family garage, and funded their entrepreneurial venture after Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak sold his beloved scientific calculator.

Jobs and Wozniak are credited with revolutionizing the computer industry by democratizing the technology and making the machines smaller, cheaper, intuitive, and accessible to everyday consumers. The two conceived a series of user-friendly personal computers that they initially marketed for $666.66 each. Their first model, the Apple I, earned them $774,000. Three years after the release of their second model, the Apple II, sales increased 700 percent to $139 million dollars. In 1980, Apple Computer became a publically traded company with

a market value of $1.2 billion on the very first day of trading. Jobs looked to marketing expert John Scully of Pepsi-Cola to help fill the role of Apple's President.

DEPARTURE FROM APPLE

However, the next several products from Apple suffered significant design flaws resulting in recalls and consumer disappointment. IBM suddenly surpassed Apple sales, and Apple had to compete with an IBM/PC dominated business world. In 1984 Apple released the Macintosh, marketing the computer as a piece of a counter culture lifestyle: romantic, youthful, creative. But despite positive sales and performance superior to IBM's PCs, the Macintosh was still not IBM compatible. Scully believed Jobs was hurting Apple, and executives began to phase him out.

In 1985, Jobs resigned as Apple's CEO to begin a new hardware and software company called NeXT, Inc. The following year Jobs purchased an animation company from George Lucas, which later became Pixar Animation Studios. Believing in Pixar's potential, Jobs initially invested $50 million of his own money into the company. Pixar Studios went on to produce wildly popular animation films such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. Pixar's films have netted $4 billion. The studio merged with Walt Disney in 2006, making Steve Jobs Disney's largest shareholder.

REINVENTING APPLE

Despite Pixar's success, NeXT, Inc. floundered in its attempts to sell its specialized operating system to mainstream America. Apple eventually bought the company in 1997 for $429 million. That same year, Jobs returned to his post as Apple's CEO.

Much like Steve Jobs instigated Apple's success in the 1970s, he is credited with revitalizing the company in the 1990s. With a new management team, altered stock options, and a self-imposed annual salary of $1 a year, Jobs put Apple back on track. His ingenious products such as the iMac, effective branding campaigns, and stylish designs caught the attention of consumers once again.

PANCREATIC CANCER

In 2003, Jobs discovered he had a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare but operable form of pancreatic cancer. Instead of immediately opting for surgery, Jobs chose to alter his pescovegetarian diet while weighing Eastern treatment options. For nine months Jobs postponed surgery, making Apple's board of directors nervous. Executives feared that shareholders would pull their stocks if word got out that their CEO was ill. But in the end, Job's confidentiality took precedence over shareholder disclosure. In 2004, he had a successful surgery to remove the pancreatic tumor. True to form, in subsequent years Jobs disclosed little about his health.

RECENT INNOVATIONS

Apple introduced such revolutionary products as the Macbook Air, iPod, and iPhone, all of which have dictated the evolution of modern technology. Almost immediately after Apple releases a new product, competitors scramble to produce comparable technologies. In 2007, Apple's quarterly reports were the company's most impressive statistics to date. Stocks were worth a record-breaking $199.99 a share, and the company boasted a staggering $1.58 billion dollar profit, an $18 billion dollar surplus in the bank, and zero debt.

In 2008, iTunes became the second biggest music retailer in America-second only to Wal-Mart. Half of Apple's current revenue comes from iTunes and iPod sales, with 200 million iPods sold and six billion songs downloaded. For these reasons, Apple has been rated No. 1 in America's Most Admired Companies, and No. 1 amongst Fortune 500 companies for returns to shareholders.

PERSONAL LIFE

Early in 2009, reports circulated about Jobs's weight loss, some predicting his health issues had returned, which included a liver transplant. Jobs had responded to these concerns by stating he was dealing with a hormone imbalance. After nearly a year out of the spotlight, Steve Jobs delivered a keynote address at an invite-only Apple event September 9, 2009.

In respect to his personal life, Steve Jobs remained a private man who rarely discloses information about his family. What is known is Jobs fathered a daughter with girlfriend Chrisann Brennan when he was 23. Jobs denied paternity of his daughter Lisa in court documents, claiming he was sterile. Jobs did not initiate a relationship with his daughter until she was 7 but, when she was a teenager, she came to live with her father.

In the early 1990s, Jobs met Laurene Powell at Stanford business school, where Powell was an MBA student. They married on March 18, 1991, and lived together in Palo Alto, California, with their three children.

FINAL YEARS

On October 5, 2011, Apple Inc. announced that co-founder Steve Jobs had died. He was 56 years old at the time of his death.